“The new building, which was to feature a 240-room hotel on the first 15 floors, was part of the university’s ambitious plan to add six million square feet of classrooms, dormitories, and offices over the next two decades to its Greenwich Village campus and on Governors Island, Downtown Brooklyn, and the East Side of Manhattan,” the Times says. “But local residents and preservationists vehemently opposed adding a fourth tower to the original three-tower Modernist design, and Mr. Pei’s approval was seen as important in winning the landmark commission’s ratification. NYU said the architect, who is 93, originally had no qualms about the plan, but now had second thoughts.”

The university will now put up a 17-story building at LaGuardia Place and Bleecker Street that will contain the same internal square footage.